City-Nature. Conspicuous places in the Mediterranean landscape

The content of this essay is the partial result of an original research conducted by the author in the Urban form grammars (UFG) research group of the Polytechnic of Bari on the settlement principle of City-nature. The crisis of the contemporary city represents the occasion to rethinking its form beginning from the assumption of the nature as a constituent part of its structure. City-nature model opposes itself to the consumption of territory and offers an harmonious interpretation of the relationship between urban and natural landscapes through settlement/dwelling evocative forms, in continuity with nature. The study case is Tricase, a small-sized town in the polycentric settlement system of Southern Salento, directly connected with its small harbour on the Adriatic sea; project areas are both excellent natural coastal sites both places "of crisis" of the urban form that mark the limits of the waterfront and measure the morphological unity of the “territorial room”.